Dome News

News of Astronomy, Space, Science, & Technology

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Dome News Updates

Irregular Update #14

Editor Out of Town

This is the fourteenth of the irregular updates that the editor will provide during his travels.

These two months are going to be a travel period for the editor. It's a summer vacation -- visits to old friends in Minnesota, and a month in New Mexico.

It's hard to keep up with the news on the road. So you can expect some updates — like this one —, but at this point there is no way to say exactly when the next one will be.

We will be back in Texas by about Sept. 1. The regular updates should resume shortly after that.

                                                            --- The Editor

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Image: The ISS Passes in Front of the Sun

The International Space Station Transits the Sun

Astronomy Picture of the Day Jul 30 2008

That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station (ISS) caught by chance passing in front of the Sun.

Sunspots, individually, have a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no solar panels. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism, one of the largest and most sophisticated machines ever created by humanity. Also, sunspots occur on the Sun, whereas the ISS orbits the Earth.

Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one's timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare.

Strangely, besides that fake spot, the Sun, last week, lacked any real sunspots. Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. Although fewer sunspots have been recorded during this Solar Minimum than for many previous decades, the low solar activity is not, as yet, very unusual.

See Astronomy Picture of the Day for links to further info.

NASA Image of the Day

Image: A Heat Shield for the Constellation Crew Exploration Vehicle

Building Constellation

NASA Image of the Day Download time: Jul 30 2008 9:56 AM ET

In Kennedy Space Center's Hangar N, a heat shield for the Constellation crew exploration vehicle is prepared for demonstration. The shield was designed and assembled by the Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, Calif. The thermal protection system manufacturing demonstration unit is designed to protect astronauts from extreme heat during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere from low Earth orbit and lunar missions. The crew vehicle will be used to dock and gain access to the International Space Station, travel to the moon and play a crucial role in exploring Mars.

Watching the Sky

Sky events visible to the casual observer or amateur astronomer

Buying and Using a Telescope

Friday's Solar Eclipse — Enjoy the Partial Eclipse!

Partial Eclipse, Total Fun

Science @ NASA Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:11 AM ET

On Friday, August 1st, millions of people in Greenland, Siberia, Mongolia and China—especially China—are going to witness a total eclipse of the sun. The Moon's cool shadow will sweep across the landscape, silencing wildlife with sudden darkness, filling the sky with the sun's ghostly corona, transforming ordinary folks into life-long eclipse chasers. Mainstream media gives this sort of thing saturation coverage.

Totality is a big event, but its not the only event on August 1st. Don't forget the partial eclipse!

While millions of people experience totality, billions will experience a fractional coverage of the sun with many delights of its own. The partial eclipse can be seen from about a quarter of Earth's surface, including all of Asia, most of Europe, the Middle East, India, and the Maine corner of North America. If you live in one of those areas, get ready for fun.…

See Science @ NASA for links to further info.

The Future in Space

High-Tech Maps for Lunar Astronauts

Future Moonwalkers Will Have High-Tech Maps

SPACE.com Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

Future moonwalkers could become high-tech surveyors whose lunar navigation system gets updated on the fly.

NASA-backed researchers envision a combination of motion-based sensors, surface cameras and orbiter maps to help Constellation astronauts returning to the moon in 2020.

"We will have cameras on the lander, cameras on the vehicle, and even on the shoulder, helmet or belly of the astronaut," said Ron Li, a civil engineer at Ohio State University.…

See SPACE.com for links to further info.

Mars

Mars and Its Moons

Background information about Mars

NASA's Mars Rover site at JPL

A gallery of Spirit's images and slideshow

A gallery of Opportunity's images and slideshow

Google Mars

Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Odyssey

Mars Express orbiter

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Mars Phoenix Lander

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Phoenix Site Changing

Area Beneath Phoenix Lander Is Changing

Universe Today Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

The bright, hard surface feature beneath the Phoenix Mars Lander has visibly changed from when it was first imaged shortly after the lander touched down on the Red Planet. Scientists believe the area, called "Snow Queen" could possibly be ice. Thruster exhaust blew away surface soil covering Snow Queen as Phoenix landed, exposing a hard layer with several smooth, rounded cavities. Phoenix's Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) took its first close-up image of the area under the lander on May 31, the sixth sol of the mission. Now, more than 60 days since landing, cracks as long as 10 centimeters, or about four inches, have appeared in Snow Queen.…

See Universe Today for links to further info.

Cracks Appear In Ice Under Mars Lander

SPACE.com Download time: Jul 30 2008 9:56 AM ET

A surface feature thought to be ice beneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander visibly changed sometime between mid-June and mid-July, close-up images show.

Phoenix's robotic arm camera took the first close-up image of the hard feature, dubbed Snow Queen, on May 31, six Martian days (called sols) after the craft landed. The $420 million dollar mission is digging up and testing samples of Martian dirt and ice to see if the red planet might have been habitable at some point in the past.…

See SPACE.com for links to further info.

The Cosmos

Stars, galaxies, nebulae, and cosmology

Also fundamental physics with possible astronomical or cosmological implications

Tutorials:

Big Bang   Inflation   The Cosmic Microwave Background   The Cosmic Dark Ages   Dark Matter   Dark Energy - For a more technical discussion go here.   Ask the Experts: What are dark matter and dark energy, and how are they affecting the universe? Measuring Stellar & Galactic Distances (difficult!)   Supernovas   Supernovas & Pulsars   Black Holes   Pulsars   Cosmology: the Observable Universe (moderately technical)   Cosmology (very difficult!)   

Gravitational Wave Disappointment

The painful search for gravitational waves

the physics arXiv blog Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

Gravitational wave detectors have a sorry history of disappointing results.

Joseph Weber at the University of Maryland first claimed to have spotted these waves in 1969. He did it by listening to the way a giant cylindrical bars vibrate, thinking that passing gravitational waves would cause them to ring like a bell. Nobody has been able to reproduce these results and they remain strongly disputed today.

Various groups still listen out for gravitational waves using Weber-like detectors. But the Ferraris in this field are a new generation of laser interferometers that are much more sensitive to the bending and squeezing of space that these waves cause as they pass by.…

LHC Almost Ready to Begin

Let the Proton Smashing Begin. (The Rap Is Already Written.)

NYT > Science Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:11 AM ET

After 14 years, the world’s largest physics experiment seems to be getting close enough to becoming a reality for its participants to plan the opening parties.

The Large Hadron Collider, under construction at CERN, outside Geneva, is designed to accelerate protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts and then smash them together in search of new particles and perhaps new forces of nature. Although no schedule has been officially announced, sources in the physics community and CERN's own Web site indicate that scientists and engineers will try to shoot the first beam of protons through one section of 17-mile-long racetrack on the weekend of Aug. 9. If all goes well, the first protons will begin circulating around the entire machine on Sept. 2 or 3.…

Aerospace

Aeronautical and space technology

Testing NASA's Moon Truck

NASA uses remote sand dunes as stand-in for moon

PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

Two NASA astronauts in spacesuits drove their lunar truck up a steep sand dune in a barren, wind-swept landscape so forbidding it was reminiscent of the surface of the moon.

Space agency officials certainly think so. NASA scientists and contractors recently spent two weeks here field-testing some of the vehicles and robots that will be used when humans return to the moon later this century.

"Believe it or not, this place has a lot in common with the moon," Robert Ambrose, deputy division chief for NASA, said of the unusual sand dunes in central Washington.…

Military Tech

Antimissile Laser to Begin Testing

'Laser jumbo' testing moves ahead

BBC News | Technology | UK Edition Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

A US military plane equipped with a powerful laser has moved a step closer to becoming a viable weapon.

Engineers have started flowing chemical fuel through the laser to test its sequencing and control.

This will set up the first test firing of the weapon aboard the aircraft while it is on the ground.

The US Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL) is designed to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles in the early stages of their flight.

Technology

Internet Flaw Endangers Public

With Security at Risk, a Push to Patch the Web

NYT > Technology Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:11 AM ET

Since a secret emergency meeting of computer security experts at Microsoft's headquarters in March, Dan Kaminsky has been urging companies around the world to fix a potentially dangerous flaw in the basic plumbing of the Internet.

While Internet service providers are racing to fix the problem, which makes it possible for criminals to divert users to fake Web sites where personal and financial information can be stolen, Mr. Kaminsky worries that they have not moved quickly enough.

By his estimate, roughly 41 percent of the Internet is still vulnerable. Now Mr. Kaminsky, a technical consultant who first discovered the problem, has been ramping up the pressure on companies and organizations to make the necessary software changes before criminal hackers take advantage of the flaw.…

Self-Cleaning Materials

Self-Cleaning Materials: Lotus Leaf-Inspired Nanotechnology [Scientific American Magazine]

Scientific American Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

•Microscopic bumps on a lotus leaf transform its waxy surface into an extremely water repellent, or superhydrophobic, material. Raindrops roll easily across such a surface, removing any dirt.

•Researchers have developed synthetic self-cleaning materials, some of which are based on this "lotus effect," whereas others employ the opposite property—superhydro?philicity—as well as catalytic chemical reactions.

•Future products may combine the two water affinity properties or use substances that can be switched back and forth to control the flow of liquids through microfluidic components.…

See Scientific American for links to further info.

Out of Left Field

News interesting to the editor that doesn't fit into other categories

Weird stuff also goes here

Goodbye Jurassic Park!

Did Dinosaur Soft Tissues Still Survive? New Research Challenges Notion

ScienceDaily: Latest Science News Download time: Jul 30 2008 8:12 AM ET

Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research that apparently showed that soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, a major finding that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.

But new research challenges that finding and suggests that the supposed recovered dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm – or slime.

"I believed that preserved soft tissues had been found, but I had to change my opinion," said Thomas Kaye, an associate researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington. "You have to go where the science leads, and the science leads me to believe that this is bacterial biofilm."…